People (wrongly) think they’ll remember

During classroom training, ever see someone not taking notes? If so, they may be the victim of “stability bias.”

That’s when people think their memory is like a computer hard drive. They’re convinced they’ll remember what you’re saying in the future because it’s fresh in the memory now.

In a recent study, researchers asked trainees to memorize word pairs and then predict if they could successfully repeat the process. When relying only on memory, they overpredicted their success.

Take home: Explain to learners that the act of taking notes helps build memories, while the notes themselves will help retrieve those memories later.

Source: Kornell, N., et al., A Stability Bias in Human Memory.” Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2009, Vol. 138, No. 4, 449-368.